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New Member Introductions Getting more and more new members here, so I think we need a forum for them to introduce themselves. You old timers can do the same, if you would like.

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Old 03-16-2010, 08:44 AM   #11
JemmaUK
Its a two foot by one foot by 8 inch perspex with a louvered top & two latched opening panels.

Im using a heat mat under one end set by thermostat at 85f - its a little warm to the touch on the warm side - substrate is a layer of kitchen towel and a layer of softer paper above that. It does have a sensor but the thing is pitiful *sigh*... I might relocate it so it touches the floor when I feed again. There is a long hide which is a piece of bark that covers three quarters length - and a small hide which is - of all things a small pouch for an ancient webcam - they both tend to like that one and they'll either be one under each or both under one. They seem to like curling up in the fabric hide. The water container is a typical store bought dirty brown thing with attempts at 'naturalisation' - I swear its putting them off water lol, it would me.

When Claudia shed she tore the skin just abaft the vent - so I had to help her a little with that by putting her into a little tepid water for a few minutes and then helping her get the end off - I have been misting occasionally because of that.

I did try putting them back in the little plastic containers they came in - but they completely freaked - bad associations I guess - there are some containers in the pound shop in town that I might get a couple of and transfer them to those... wait until they are bigger to put them back into the vivarium.

I am beginning to get the impression I might have been doing a fairly good job of killing with kindness here. As i said before I will leave them another 3 days and then try and feed again - see how it goes...

Another odd thing I have noticed. When she shed she got more yellow along the backbone areas of the base colour so there is an area along her backbone that is variable shades of beige - which I expected to happen - or at least wasnt a surprise... but the red saddles seem to be changing too - there are areas within the saddles that are turning the base colour (a dirty blueish grey). These areas are within the back saddles to each side, like a patch within a patch... which I didnt think happened in Crimsons...?

When babies are handled are they supposed to move fast or move slowly if they are ok with it? mine will often tie themselves in knots around one hand and just sit there looking around with interest - or will attempt to turn themselves into little snake twigs - they especially like watching movement on a computer screen but at one of them hates the music of J.S. Bach of all things... Claudia went mad listening to that on iplayer (it wasnt loud) and I suspect there was a frequency in there she didnt like - like my music teachers poodle and F-sharp (I have never, before or since, heard a dog make a noise like that in my life...!).
 
Old 03-16-2010, 09:41 AM   #12
starsevol
I would seperate as soon as possible. Snakes are solitary by nature, and co habbing WILL lead to stress. Stress can cause a bunch of health problems, and shorten your animals lifespan considerably.
And if you have a male and a female, he WILL try to breed with her too early, which can cause egg binding and kill her.
The hatchling in my avatar is the result of a cohab. I had a rack burn up and needed to house 2 snakes together temporarily. The female became eggbound and died.....

Imagine if someone locked you in a house with someone you can't stand, and forced you to live close to that person forever. No escape. Do you think your health might be affected? That is the reality of your snake's lives every single day you force them to be together.....
 
Old 03-16-2010, 10:02 AM   #13
JemmaUK
Quote:
Originally Posted by starsevol View Post
I would seperate as soon as possible. Snakes are solitary by nature, and co habbing WILL lead to stress. Stress can cause a bunch of health problems, and shorten your animals lifespan considerably.
And if you have a male and a female, he WILL try to breed with her too early, which can cause egg binding and kill her.
The hatchling in my avatar is the result of a cohab. I had a rack burn up and needed to house 2 snakes together temporarily. The female became eggbound and died.....

Imagine if someone locked you in a house with someone you can't stand, and forced you to live close to that person forever. No escape. Do you think your health might be affected? That is the reality of your snake's lives every single day you force them to be together.....
There is one slight problem with this - both the hides are in exactly the same position - half on and half off the warmed area. If the snakes hated the sight of each other they have two places that are identical in temperature to go to yet they mostly dont... they either curl together in one or the other. occasionally one will be found alone, but not very often.

As a matter of fact Corns, along with other snakes such as Garter Snakes congregate when they brumate - as shown wonderfully recently by Attenborough yet again..

They are still barely more than hatchlings - neither of them are mature enough to mate. I will separate them anyway in the fullness of time, at the latest within the next 3 months, and sooner if Claudia doesnt take food in the next few days.

I was in that exactly situation - parents who more than once attempted to kill me, and when that attracted the interest of the local polizei they switched to verbal and emotional abuse - so please do not attempt to liken this situation to that because I find it very deeply offensive.

While I may not be the expert you claim to be I am fully capable of looking after animals, and making my own decisions on advice received - and so far, I have not lost a single animal of any species to anything other than natural old age - and I have, so I am told, a natural affinity (including being the only stranger not to be munched on by various dogs that are rabid death to anyone other that their owner) so please dont give me orders or patronise me - I have had enough of that from various surgeons & doctors over my lifetime.

The advice I have had over cornsnakes varies wildly from one extreme to the other on virtually every possible subject... even some of the information in the cornsnake book I have seems to be contradicted here & thats supposedly authored by the high priestess of this particular skill.

I dont take any animals welfare lightly - nor do I treat humans any different. If changes need to be made they will be made, but I dont have the money at the moment to do so and i am not convinced of the necessity quite yet, considering that if the snakes are stressed, yanking them out of a vivarium and putting them in a sandwich box is hardly going to gain me mommie of the week award in their eyes... and if they arent - doing the self same thing will make them so...
 
Old 03-16-2010, 10:19 AM   #14
bitsy
Quote:
supposedly authored by the high priestess of this particular skill.
Kathy is a board member here and posts regularly. You might want to tone it down a little. She is highly thought of throughout the Corn Snake world and if you've recieved advice that's contradictory to Kathy's then ten-to-one it's not Kathy who's wrong.
 
Old 03-16-2010, 10:28 AM   #15
starsevol
Quote:
Originally Posted by JemmaUK View Post
There is one slight problem with this - both the hides are in exactly the same position - half on and half off the warmed area. If the snakes hated the sight of each other they have two places that are identical in temperature to go to yet they mostly dont... they either curl together in one or the other. occasionally one will be found alone, but not very often.

As a matter of fact Corns, along with other snakes such as Garter Snakes congregate when they brumate - as shown wonderfully recently by Attenborough yet again..

They are still barely more than hatchlings - neither of them are mature enough to mate. I will separate them anyway in the fullness of time, at the latest within the next 3 months, and sooner if Claudia doesnt take food in the next few days.

I was in that exactly situation - parents who more than once attempted to kill me, and when that attracted the interest of the local polizei they switched to verbal and emotional abuse - so please do not attempt to liken this situation to that because I find it very deeply offensive.

While I may not be the expert you claim to be I am fully capable of looking after animals, and making my own decisions on advice received - and so far, I have not lost a single animal of any species to anything other than natural old age - and I have, so I am told, a natural affinity (including being the only stranger not to be munched on by various dogs that are rabid death to anyone other that their owner) so please dont give me orders or patronise me - I have had enough of that from various surgeons & doctors over my lifetime.

The advice I have had over cornsnakes varies wildly from one extreme to the other on virtually every possible subject... even some of the information in the cornsnake book I have seems to be contradicted here & thats supposedly authored by the high priestess of this particular skill.

I dont take any animals welfare lightly - nor do I treat humans any different. If changes need to be made they will be made, but I dont have the money at the moment to do so and i am not convinced of the necessity quite yet, considering that if the snakes are stressed, yanking them out of a vivarium and putting them in a sandwich box is hardly going to gain me mommie of the week award in their eyes... and if they arent - doing the self same thing will make them so...

I am no "expert" at all. I have only kept snakes for 14 years, which is nothing compared to some of the people here. And I DO have a dead snake to show for my temporary co habbing.
I have heard of garter snakes brumating together, but NEVER cornsnakes.
And I really don't care a whole lot if my comparing the living situation your snakes are going through to your past offends you, it is reality that non social animals suffer when forced to be together. And my analogy FITS, whether you are offended or not! Instinctually, these animals will "appear" to be just fine and dandy when undergoing a huge amount of stress. Why? Because in nature any animal that appears to be stressed or weak has a much better chance of being eaten by something. The one way that they can show stress that won't be detected by a predator is....guess what....NOT EATING!!!
 
Old 03-16-2010, 10:42 AM   #16
Dazzles
I think the fact that there are so many different opinions on the issue of cohabitating because there are so many differences in individual snakes. Neither group could be right about corn snakes as a WHOLE with proof to the contrary on each side.

I think your plan of action--giving it a couple more days--is suitable.

You might have been feeding too much and too often and it has only been 5 days.

However, if that doesn't work, your plan to separate and try again is also excellent.

I'll go ahead and use another analogy:

You put your child/pet/loved one in a room with a large dog. 50% of people say that dog will harm and/or kill them. 50% say it won't hurt them at all.

I wouldn't risk it. HALF is really good odds. Especially when signs of stress are impossible to detect in a naturally defensive animal. With one exception: not eating.

But, like others have said, it could just be a case of too much food.

If they need fed every 6 days and yours has only gone 5, doesn't seem like too much of a worry, hon.
 
Old 03-16-2010, 10:55 AM   #17
snakewispera snr
I wrote out so much stuff for the OP then deleted it...
As the OP has said... They have a natural affinity to animals and they research everything... So best of luck op...
BTW... Why did you come here to ask for advice if you are going to argue the toss with everyone.....??
In future if you could set out guide lines on the sort of answers you want we'll try and keep our opinions to ourselves and just copy and paste your supplied answers in for you....
 
Old 03-16-2010, 11:06 AM   #18
diamondlil
ewwwwwwww! I hear you on the brown water dish, my son was using one for his leopard gecko before she became mine, now Blossom gets a pretty glass dish to drink from!
So they are in a 'Critter keeper' type plastic viv? Not too pricey to set up an identical one then when you do separate them (as you're going to anyway as they grow).
Maybe using a substate they can burrow in would be a good idea, personally I'm not a fan of paper towels except for the first weeks with newly hatched corns, when I need to check they are pooping. They are natural burrowers and climbers and watching them do so is for me part of the fun of having them. Aspen is widely recommended but I use the chopped barley straw (again from Wilkos) as I can't get aspen where I live. Also, they might be squishing in the same hide because it's a bit big, they like to really fit tightly in. Looroll and kitchen roll tubes make good hides for babies and you just replace when they get soiled.
 
Old 03-16-2010, 11:16 AM   #19
JemmaUK
Quote:
Originally Posted by snakewispera snr View Post
I wrote out so much stuff for the OP then deleted it...
As the OP has said... They have a natural affinity to animals and they research everything... So best of luck op...
BTW... Why did you come here to ask for advice if you are going to argue the toss with everyone.....??
In future if you could set out guide lines on the sort of answers you want we'll try and keep our opinions to ourselves and just copy and paste your supplied answers in for you....
Likening snakes who *might* be stressed to a situation where a child - before the age of 4 gets second degree burns in church or is pushed face first through a plate glass window by said parents mother - is offensive to anyone who has been abused.
If you'd bothered to read my responses I have already said they will be separated if needs be and would be separated within the next few months anyway.
I dont mind taking advice on things - I dont mind giving people the benefit of my experiences - and alot of the things I know about I'm one of the very few experts... but d*mn near giving me orders is not passing friendly advice...

Oh and by the way - I just checked on them and they are curled up together like a little snake ball and looking happily out the side of the vivarium at me in a completely different place from their usual hideyholes - that makes three different places where they seem to like spending time together
 
Old 03-16-2010, 11:25 AM   #20
JemmaUK
Quote:
Originally Posted by diamondlil View Post
ewwwwwwww! I hear you on the brown water dish, my son was using one for his leopard gecko before she became mine, now Blossom gets a pretty glass dish to drink from!
So they are in a 'Critter keeper' type plastic viv? Not too pricey to set up an identical one then when you do separate them (as you're going to anyway as they grow).
Maybe using a substate they can burrow in would be a good idea, personally I'm not a fan of paper towels except for the first weeks with newly hatched corns, when I need to check they are pooping. They are natural burrowers and climbers and watching them do so is for me part of the fun of having them. Aspen is widely recommended but I use the chopped barley straw (again from Wilkos) as I can't get aspen where I live. Also, they might be squishing in the same hide because it's a bit big, they like to really fit tightly in. Looroll and kitchen roll tubes make good hides for babies and you just replace when they get soiled.
Dont know what type it is - its sorta got a '70's look to it tho, perfectly servicable for all that. I've considered putting some yarn and stuff up for them to hang from etc but they just dont seem interested in the slightest in anything involving movement of any kind *sigh*

the oddest thing about the hides is that they'd pick the biggest one and just sorta loosely coil round each other - then wander to the littler one and end up in a snake-ball with two little heads peering out - just now they've decided that burrowing under the fabric hide is a wonderful game and they are curled up in the very corner of the viv watching the world (aka my feet) go by.

If they had been in the slightest aggressive to each other or acting irritated or grumpy I would have split them up before now - but I just havent seen it... I just see a ball of snake curled up in whatever corner is flavour of the day...

I am thinking about the paper tubes actually - to make some more small hides - maybe some that are suspended if they like to climb - again the advice I have varies on that point too - some people say they climb like chimps on speed and others say they get vertigo on a deep pile carpet...
 

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